Apr. 1, 2007

Patience

  Dear friends and family,

Between holiness and disenchanted cynicism

lies the great and divine virtue of patience

-- patience, first of all with ourselves.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann

As I write you the sun is out and spring is in the air, though my computer tells me it is still in the 40's.  Nonetheless, we feel the thawing of winter and the new life coursing just under the surface.  In a few weeks, life will be put on display with buds and blossoms exploding all over town. 

The quote above reflects well my inner struggle the past few months.  By nature, Joel and I are idealists, dreamers, visionaries.  It is easy for us to sit around and come up with plans and hopes for the future.  But the past year or two has brought us to the place of letting go of many of those ideas for the calling of our family.  We have had to say "no" to many things in order to say "yes" to our marriage and sons.  This is so difficult for each of us, as we are always seeing what could and should be done around us with our friends living in poverty.   But we are coming around to seeing the patience needed to let God use us as He will, when He will.   We tend to get ahead of God and march off toward holiness, or justice, or whatever virtue is calling to us.  And then we are faced with the weakness, the limitedness, and yes, the sinfulness of ourselves and those around us.  It is then that we can tumble down into disenchanted cynicism, where our eyes become blinded by failure so that we cannot see where God is leading. 

We are learning, step by step, the way of patience.  Wow, I thought I was a patient person until I had a four year old who insists on dressing himself, buttons, zippers and all.  Now my times of waiting and waiting and waiting for Simeon to master the feat of dressing are times when I see myself in this journey with God.  I am learning that God is my patient father who doesn't intervene and just speed me along to the visions I have for our life and our community.  There are things to be learned along the way that can be learned no other way than through doing them.  The daily snaps and zippers and twisted around t-shirts of our work here in Galati are the way He is teaching us patience.  For now, we are not doing big, dramatic ministry, but we are learning to be faithful in the small, important things He has put before us.   And following His leading is the most significant thing we can ever do.

As we have been practicing patience, we have seen God do things that we arrogantly thought would only happen with much striving on our part.  One boy who was abandoned by his parents after he was diagnosed with HIV, and lived most of his life on the streets or in hospitals, has left the streets for an apartment for young people.  He is learning a trade and seems to be on the road to health and maturity.  Of the slew of new school children that came to the center in the fall, most are thriving in the structured, encouraging atmosphere of the drop in center.  We recently celebrated the young ladies who come to the center with a giggle and squeal-filled party at our house.  On women's day we held a mini-spa for the mothers of the school children and got to see the heavy burdens they bear lifted a little through a time of pampering and love.  A brother and sister who have recently been taken into a loving foster home are getting the care and consistency they have needed all their lives.   These are signs to us that God is working and moving.

As many of you know, this year has been a rocky one for us financially.  Our family has had to really depend on God in a way we never have had to before.  We shared with you our needs, and many of you blessed us with sacrificial giving.  Thank you so much.  Sometimes, I really think God has a fun time surprising us with His provision.  In the past few months, He has come through for us with such uncanny timing, that we have to wonder if He is chuckling about it all.   I thought I would share a few of those incidents with you to both give glory to God for His faithful lovingkindness to us, and to encourage you that He is concerned about the welfare of His children.

We had budgeted that Joel's newfound passion (ok, obsession) with violin would be funded by his art sales.  At Christmas, someone bought a painting of his, and that supplied his violin lessons for several months.  Then one of his strings started to come undone and he searched around for deals on strings. None were within our budget.  Just a day or two after his string officially broke, he got a call from the art gallery here in Galati saying someone wanted to buy one of his paintings.  Now, Joel has probably had paintings in 5 or 6 shows in that gallery and this is the first time he has ever sold one, but it is also the only time he has ever needed to sell one.

Also, our computer was starting to get full due to all the pictures and videos we take.  Joel thought it would be good to get a separate hard drive to back up all our documents and to save space on our computer.  He looked at prices a little bit and we filed it under "someday when we have some extra money".  Then, within a week, one staff member gave us an old hard drive he wasn't using, and another staff member gave us a hard drive case!

And lastly, as you know, we have recently bought some land with Lau and Vali where we are going to build a small duplex together.  Well, Romania has some pretty interesting bureaucratic hoops you have to jump through to get things built.   I had suggested a few times that we call an acquaintance named Dan who works for city hall.  I thought he might know how to get papers and documents approved quicker than the usual snails pace most things take at city hall. Well, we had a couple problems.  We didn't have Dan's phone number, and we didn't know his last name to get his phone number.   Plus, it felt kind of weird to call someone up that you haven't seen for a year to ask for help.  On the day Joel and Lau went to talk with an architect to get the ball rolling, the phone rang at our house.  Guess who?? Dan!! Out of the blue HE called US to see how we were doing.  And I told him that Joel was out meeting with an architect about building a house.  He said, "I can help you with that."  He got us connected with an architect and he knows all the right channels to send the acts and documents through to get approval for building.  Hallelujah!!

So, as you can see, God has been taking care of us in some pretty funny ways.  Not ways we would expect or imagine, but we are so blessed by His faithful love for us. 

And some of the greatest signs of this for us are the prayers and support you all give to us faithfully each day.  Can I ever say thank you enough??

 

Blessings to all of you, 

Monica, Joel, Simeon and Abram